4th amendment"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."~Constitution of the USA

Not that we use the Constitution anymore or anything, but if an airport security agent touched my 3-y-o girl they'd be eating through a straw for a while.

I can't see the video right now at work but I heard about it on the radio (Niel Bortz) at lunch, is it the same one where the little girl screams "STOP TOUCHING ME!"?

They'd be in the hospital and I'd be in jail.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.~Ben Franklin

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

ATLANTA – In a climate of Internet campaigns to shun airport pat-downs and veteran pilots suing over their treatment by government screeners, some airports are considering another way to show dissatisfaction: Ditching TSA agents altogether.

Federal law allows airports to opt for screeners from the private sector instead. The push is being led by a powerful Florida congressman who's a longtime critic of the Transportation Security Administration and counts among his campaign contributors some of the companies who might take the TSA's place.

Furor over airline passenger checks has grown as more airports have installed scanners that produce digital images of the body's contours, and the anger intensified when TSA added a more intrusive style of pat-down recently for those who opt out of the full-body scans. Some travelers are using the Internet to organize protests aimed at the busy travel days next week surrounding Thanksgiving.

For Republican Rep. John Mica of Florida, the way to make travelers feel more comfortable would be to kick TSA employees out of their posts at the ends of the snaking security lines. This month, he wrote letters to nation's 100 busiest airports asking that they request private security guards instead.

"I think we could use half the personnel and streamline the system," Mica said Wednesday, calling the TSA a bloated bureaucracy.

Mica is the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Once the new Congress convenes in January, the lawmaker is expected lead the committee.

Companies that could gain business if airports heed Mica's call have helped fill his campaign coffers. In the past 13 years, Mica has received almost $81,000 in campaign donations from political action committees and executives connected to some of the private contractors already at 16 U.S. airports.

Private contractors are not a cure-all for passengers aggrieved about taking off their shoes for security checks, passing through full-body scanners or getting hand-frisked. For example, contractors must follow all TSA-mandated security procedures, including hand patdowns when necessary.

Still, the top executive at the Orlando-area's second-largest airport, Orlando Sanford International Airport, said he plans to begin the process of switching to private screeners in January as long as a few remaining concerns can be met. The airport is within Mica's district, and the congressman wrote his letter after hearing about its experiences.

CEO Larry Dale said members of the board that runs Sanford were impressed after watching private screeners at airports in Rochester, N.Y., and Jackson Hole, Wyo. He said TSA agents could do better at customer service.

"Some of them are a little testy," said Dale, whose airport handles 2 million passengers a year. "And we work hard to get passengers and airlines. And to have it undone by a personality problem?"

To the south, the city's main airport, Orlando International, said it's reviewing Mica's proposal, although it has some questions about how the system would work with the 34 million passengers it handles each year. In Georgia, Macon City Councilor Erick Erickson, whose committee oversees the city's small airport, wants private screeners there.

Erickson called it a protest move in an interview.

"I am a frequent air traveler and I have experienced ... TSA agents who have let the power go to their head," Erickson said. "You can complain about those people, but very rarely does the bureaucracy work quickly enough to remove those people from their positions."

TSA officials would select and pay the contractors who run airport security. But Dale thinks a private contractor would be more responsive since the contractor would need local support to continue its business with the airport.

"Competition drives accountability, it drives efficiency, it drives a particular approach to your airport," Dale said. "That company is just going to be looking at you. They're not going to be driven out of Washington, they will be driven out of here."

San Francisco International Airport has used private screeners since the formation of the TSA and remains the largest to do so.

The airport believed a private contractor would have more flexibility to supplement staff during busy periods with part-time employees, airport spokesman Mike McCarron said. Also, the city's high cost of living had made it difficult in the past to recruit federal employees to run immigration and customs stations — a problem the airport didn't want at security checkpoints.

"You get longer lines," McCarron said.

TSA spokesman Greg Soule would not respond directly Mica's letter, but reiterated the nation's roughly 460 commercial airports have the option of applying to use private contractors.

Companies that provide airport security are contributors to Mica's campaigns, although some donations came before those companies won government contracts. The Lockheed Martin Corp. Employees' Political Action Committee has given $36,500 to Mica since 1997. A Lockheed firm won the security contract in Sioux Falls, S.D. in 2005 and the contract for San Francisco the following year.

Raytheon Company's PAC has given Mica $33,500 since 1999. A Raytheon subsidiary began providing checkpoint screenings at Key West International Airport in 2007.

FirstLine Transportation Security Inc.'s PAC has donated $4,500 to the Florida congressman since 2004. FirstLine has been screening baggage and has been responsible for passenger checkpoints at the Kansas City International Airport since 2006, as well as the Gallup Municipal Airport and the Roswell Industrial Air Center in New Mexico, operating at both since 2007.

Since 2006, Mica has received $2,000 from FirstLine President Keith Wolken and $1,700 from Gerald Berry, president of Covenant Aviation Security. Covenant works with Lockheed to provide security at airports in Sioux Falls and San Francisco.

Mica spokesman Justin Harclerode said the contributions never improperly influenced the congressman, who said he was unaware Raytheon or Lockheed were in the screening business.

"They certainly never contacted him about providing screening," Harclerode said.

Anger over the screenings hasn't just come from passengers. Two veteran commercial airline pilots asked a federal judge this week to stop the whole-body scans and the new pat-down procedures, saying it violates their civil rights.

The pilots, Michael S. Roberts of Memphis and Ann Poe of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., have refused to participate in either screening method and, as a result, will not fly out of airports that use these methods, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington.

Roberts is a pilot with ExpressJet Airlines and is on unpaid administrative leave because of his refusal to enter the whole-body scanners. Poe flies for Continental Airlines and will continue to take off work as long as the existing regulations are in place.

"In her eyes, the pat-down is a physical molestation and the WBI scanner is not only intrusive, degrading and potentially dangerous, but poses a real and substantial threat to medical privacy," the lawsuit states.

___

Schneider reported from Orlando. Associated Press Writer Adrian Sainz in Memphis and AP Business Writer Samantha Bomkamp in New York contributed to this report.

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

I just took a cross-country flight and this is getting ri-damn-diculous. On both flights I watched middle aged women getting felt up all over the place. What the fuck has this come to? I say get rid of the stupid security gates all together. I'd bet we'd be just as safe as we are now. It's not like rows of passengers wouldn't be willing to take an asshole down for acting out.

I'm not sure how I'd respond if that were my wife getting pulled aside.

I'm really not a fan of this whole guilty until proven innocent thing. Having said that, I think it would be even worse if private companies were in charge of the "security".

"If he was here to discuss Dune, he sure as hell picked a dumb way to do it." -Omphalos

I've never had a problem with it honestly. It's worse down south, but still, not really that bad. This thing with the kid is bad obviously, but we do pat downs on adults to get into concerts, what's so bad about the same to get onto a plane?

What bothers me is these checks seem too random, like they're purposely NOT profiling. You must have probable cause to search someone in the US. I've heard stories about nuns, children, hot chicks being groped by these untrained TSA agents.

Fuck it, let everyone who's licensed carry a gun on the plane, then lets see someone try to set their underwear or shoes on fire.

Hand out knives and clubs to the rest as they board, make it a free-for-all.

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if that's exactly what they are doing.

But come one, there's got to be some common sense in there somewhere. A three-year-old? Although, there would be someone just mean enough to use a child to blowup a plane.

Such a sad situation this whole world is in now-a-days.

I don't fly, but if I did I don't think I would mind going thru one of those body scanners as long as it's not visible to every Tom, dick, or Harry. The other passengers don't need to know what shape I am under my clothing. And why can't the pat downs be with the back of the hand? If cops can do pat downs just using the back of the hand, then to-be-sure TSA agents can.

Well, time to cook breakfast for my niece. later guys.

What fear is there in the night? Nothing, but that which is in our own imaginations.

Freakzilla wrote:What bothers me is these checks seem too random, like they're purposely NOT profiling. You must have probable cause to search someone in the US. I've heard stories about nuns, children, hot chicks being groped by these untrained TSA agents.

Fuck it, let everyone who's licensed carry a gun on the plane, then lets see someone try to set their underwear or shoes on fire.

Hand out knives and clubs to the rest as they board, make it a free-for-all.

Fine with me at this point if I don't have to wait in that fucking line again.

AToE, what's different between this and concerts is the concert pat-down takes about 2 seconds. The new TSA rules here go well beyond groping and what has ever been done in the past. And it would certainly be inappropriate to do to a kid. I would expect to get profiled and pulled from line because of how I look, but it's never happened, it's always middle-aged women, people in wheel chairs and hip replacement/pacemaker recipients. The whole thing's a fucking joke.

"If he was here to discuss Dune, he sure as hell picked a dumb way to do it." -Omphalos

Eyes High wrote:I don't fly, but if I did I don't think I would mind going thru one of those body scanners as long as it's not visible to every Tom, dick, or Harry. The other passengers don't need to know what shape I am under my clothing.

Freakzilla wrote:AToE, what's different between this and concerts is the concert pat-down takes about 2 seconds. The new TSA rules here go well beyond groping and what has ever been done in the past. And it would certainly be inappropriate to do to a kid. I would expect to get profiled and pulled from line because of how I look, but it's never happened, it's always middle-aged women, people in wheel chairs and hip replacement/pacemaker recipients. The whole thing's a fucking joke.

I haven't been down south in a while, I'll be going again in Jan though, maybe it's worse than I remember? Funny that you never get singled out, I look a lot like you and get "randomly" selected on about 50 or 60% of flights I take, more like 90% if I'm going into the USA.

The Indian embassy in Washington is to issue a formal complaint to the US State Department following the treatment of a leading Indian Diplomat at the hands of the TSA.

Indian Ambassador to the United States, Meera Shankar (pictured above with the president) was pulled out of a security line at Jackson-Evers International Airport in Mississippi, taken into what has become known as a TSA “glass cage”, and forced to undergo an enhanced pat-down in full public view.

It is believed that the TSA operatives flagged Ms. Shankar not because she set of the metal detector, but because she was wearing a sari, a long traditional Indian robe.

Despite making it known that she was an international diplomat and asking for the search to be conducted in private, the TSA led her into a glass box where not one but two agents proceeded to conduct what has been described by thousands of travelers as nothing less than groping akin to foreplay or sexual molestation.

The Ambassador was about to board a flight to Baltimore after attending an event at Mississippi State University.

“She is a very strong woman, but you could see in her face that she was humiliated,” Tan Tsai, a research associate at MSU’s International Security Studies center who witnessed the screening, told The Clarion-Ledger. “The Indian culture is very modest.”

“The way they pat them down, it was so humiliating,” Tsai added, “Anybody who passed by could see it.”

Janos Radvanyi, Chair of the MSU’s International Studies Department was quoted as saying, “She said, ‘I will never come back here.’ We are sending her a letter of apology,”

Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna has described the incident as “unacceptable”.

“Let me be frank, this is unacceptable to India. We are going to take it up with the government of US that such unpleasant incidents do not recur,” Krishna told reporters outside parliament. He said that there were “certain well-established conventions, well-established practices as to how members of diplomatic corps are treated in a given country”.

“I am rather surprised by the way the Indian ambassador to the US has been treated. This has happened for a second time in three months,” he said.

A TSA spokesman told the Clarion-Ledger in an e-mail that “this passenger was screened in accordance with TSA security procedures.”, adding that foreign dignitaries are not exempted.

The office of Mississippi governor Haley Barbour said that they were looking into the incident.

The state Lieutenant Governor, Phil Bryant, who had met with Shankar during her visit to the state, said in an e-mail to Clarion-Ledger “Although I understand we need proper security measures to protect the passengers in US airports, I regret the outrageous way Indian Ambassador Shankar was treated by the TSA while visiting Jackson.”

This is the latest in a string of incidents that has led to mass backlash against the TSA’s enhanced screening measures.

Last week we reported on another TSA incident involving the “glass cage”.

At Phoenix airport, a young mother was subjected to enhanced groping and then shut inside the clear screening box for almost an hour by agents after she refused to allow them to put her breast milk through an X-ray device, a legitimate request that is even written into the TSA’s own guidelines.

The clear box, which has been built into some security lines at airports, is obviously intended to serve as a holding area where TSA agents can conduct searches in full public view.

As previously noted by many travelers who have complained to the ACLU, as well as New York Times journalist Joe Sharkey, this policy is purposefully designed to humiliate and ward off anyone else who may be thinking about refusing to go through full body scanners.

No one should or need be subjected to being treated like cattle as part of an effective security procedure, no matter whether they are dignitaries or members of the public. What the TSA is engaged in is blatant security theatre. Clearly groping elderly women, disabled toddlers and 8 month old twin babies has nothing to do with keeping people safe.

The TSA has already changed it’s procedure for pilots and flight attendants, and conceded that the overall policy is under review. During the recent “opt out” protests, the TSA was forced to mothball the majority of it’s x-ray body scanners and tone down the pat-downs so as to avoid a huge PR embarrassment.

As more and more incidents such as the ones described above occur, as the complaints continue to flood in, and as Americans boycott airports altogether, it can only be a matter of time before the pressure on the TSA results in a significant breakthrough and the government imposition of tyranny within airports is halted before it is fully exported to rail stations and sports stadiums across the nation.

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

if you're gonna start tossing out Alex Jones' bitch-ass in an adult conversation,Imma go get my seriously disturbed VVAW buddies ... then again, the above articlecould've been written by any of them, too .... soooo ....

................ I exist only to amuse myself ................

I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know how to fully interact with people. ~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008

if you're gonna start tossing out Alex Jones' bitch-ass in an adult conversation,Imma go get my seriously disturbed VVAW buddies ... then again, the above articlecould've been written by any of them, too .... soooo ....

I've been listening to Alex Jones again this week for the first time in a while - I like his leaps of imagination and how everyone he speaks to is at the top of their field.

It's not unusual for 17-year-old to find themselves in hot water with the fashion police. But on a flight from Virginia to Florida, Vanessa Gibbs found herself detained by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) over the appearance of her purse.And just to be clear, it wasn't the content inside the purse that the TSA objected to. No, agency officials took exception with the design of a gun on Gibbs' handbag."It's my style, it's camouflage, it has an old western gun on it," Gibbs told News4Jax.com. Gibbs didn't run into any trouble while traveling north from Jacksonville International Airport. But on her way back home, TSA officials at Norfolk International Airport pulled her aside."She was like, 'This is a federal offense because it's in the shape of a gun,'" Gibbs said. "I'm like, 'But it's a design on a purse. How is it a federal offense?'"

After TSA agents figured out the gun was a fake, Gibbs said, they told her to check the bag or turn it over. By the time security wrapped up the inspection, the pregnant teen missed her flight, and Southwest Airlines sent her to Orlando instead. The changed itinerary created no small amount of anxiety for Gibbs' mother, who was already waiting for her to arrive at the Jacksonville airport.

"Oh, it's terrifying. I was so upset," said Tami Gibbs, the teen's mom. "I was on the phone all the way to Orlando trying to figure out what was going on with her. It was terrifying."Less terrifying is the actual design on the purse, which is only a few inches in size and hollow. "I carried this from Jacksonville to Norfolk, and I've carried it from Norfolk to Jacksonville," Vanessa said. "Never once has anyone said anything about it until now."Nonetheless, the TSA says the design could be considered a "replica weapon," something that the agency has banned since 2002. Just imagine what would have happened if Gibbs had also been wearing stiletto heels.

What's the use of power if you can't abuse it? Except when it comes to the title of this thread of course, and except when it come to every other situation. Why should a TSA agent feel the need to feel-up a three-year old girl? TSA agents should be the best available, not @#% creatures. Yeah, people the worst. I'm talking about you, by the way.